Frank Artale

Ignition Partners has expanded its foothold in the cloud computing industry with a new investment in New York-based Apprenda.

Ignition led a $10 million round of funding in the Platform as a Service (PaaS) company, known for its cloud application platform for building and running applications based on Microsoft’s .NET framework.

Frank Artale, managing director at Ignition, will join the board as well. He has been an advisor to the startup since it was founded in 2005.

"Apprenda has a growing customer base and a scalable business model to help grow into an extremely profitable business as they are solving a key need for enterprises," Artale in a statement. "This is an exciting time for Apprenda as they are rapidly expanding and have an incredibly talented management team and group of engineers. I look forward to working closely with the team as a member of the board of directors."

The startup said it will use the new capital to accelerate product development and expand marketing and sales.

Artale, a serial entrepreneur, recently brought his expertise in the cloud computing and virtualization space to Ignition; since then, the company has invested in several companies working in the cloud space.

In a tweet, Artale noted Apprenda may also open a Redmond office.